Suck in that waist.

THE LATEST medical advice is that you're more likely to live a long and healthy life if your waist measurement is less than half your height. Thankfully, these are two dimensions which can be easily fiddled. Just tighten that 34 inch belt (yes, the one supporting your 48-inch gut) another notch and wear your Cuban heels with thick socks. You'll live for ever.

IF the Scots want to go, then for God's sake let them go. No more threats, no more bribes. I still think they will vote heavily against independence in next week's referendum and I'd like to see the UK stay together – but not at any price. Whitehall's emergency last-ditch plan of love-bombing the Scots with the promise of another great wodge of cash and new powers in return for a no vote is a wodge too far. It is also deeply undemocratic and thoroughly unprincipled. How can the Government change the terms of the deal after the postal votes have been cast? This is the sort of double-dealing that makes the blue-faced lunatic fringe reach for the firelighters.

SOME unionists in Ulster fear that a vote for independence in Scotland would trigger another round of violence from Republicans who want to liberate Northern Ireland from British rule. Where will this end? If we lose Scotland and Ulster can we in all conscience hang on to Liverpool?

I FEARED I might be a minority of one by daring to admit I am not a lover of Warhorse. Apparently not. A reader writes: "I saw the award-winning production in Birmingham last year and found it boring, mawkish and a challenge to the imagination." He was also irritated by a memorial in London to animals which "lost their lives" in war. He fumes: "How long before we are asked to contribute to a memorial to those animals who lost their lives in slaughterhouses?" I can see it now. The Tomb of the Unknown Porker.

FUNNY how our views change as we get older. The Drama channel is re-running Ever Decreasing Circles, starring Richard Briers as the neighbourhood organiser Martin and Peter Egan as Paul, the smooth, newly-arrived neighbour. When it was first shown on the BBC in 1984, the characters were clear-cut. Martin was an irritating busybody, a pettifogging control freak who ran everything from Neighbourhood Watch to the car club. Paul was the cool, unruffled hairdresser who poked fun at Martin and flirted with Martin's wife Ann (Penelope Wilton). Oh, how we sneered and sniggered at hapless Martin in his tweed jacket. Oh, how we wanted to be like Paul, snake-hipped, handsome and forever bringing Martin's castles crashing down. Thirty years pass and you meet the characters again. Today, I find myself warming to Martin. Yes, he may be an irritant but without people like Martin, neighbourhoods would wither and society would fall apart. And Paul? He's a silly, foppish waste of space, a Peter Pan smartarse and a prize sleazeball. And who needs snakelike hips, anyway?

LAST week's item on spoonerisms reminds a reader of the harrowing embarrassment when he explained to his two little daughters the innocent amusement of changing letters around. At the time the girls were watching Robin Hood and began spoonerising the characters: Hobin Rood, Jittle Lohn, Scill Warlet. To his horror, their father realised what was coming next. Friar Tuck.

ON trial and facing a life stretch in the United States, the rabble-rousing cleric Abu Qatada utterly condemns the beheading of two US journalists by Islamic State militants. In the immortal words of Mandy Rice-Davies: Well, he would, wouldn't he?